An important part of any story are the cause and effect relationships that drive the plot. Students can enhance prediction and problem-solving, by demonstrating their understanding of chain reactions in the novel. Creating a storyboard that shows the cause and effect in events will increase their understanding of these relationships.
For this activity, create a storyboard template with the "causes" of events already filled in, and ask students to depict the "effect". Alternatively, have students complete both cause and effect for a given event or series of events. When you click "Use This Assignment", both the example above and a blank template will copy into your account for you to customize as desired!
(These instructions are completely customizable. After clicking "Use This Assignment With My Students", update the instructions on the Edit Tab of the assignment.)
Student Instructions
Create a storyboard that shows cause and effect relationships in Holes. Each cause and effect pair will be shown in the same row.
Grade Level 4-5
Difficulty Level 3 (Developing to Mastery)
Type of Assignment Individual or Partner
Type of Activity: Cause and Effect within Plot
Common Core Standards
(You can also create your own on Quick Rubric.)
| Proficient | Emerging | Beginning | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cause | All events on the left side of the T-Chart are correctly identified as causes. These events are why something else happened. | Most events on the left side of the T-Chart are correctly identified as causes or why something else happened. | Few or no events on the left side of the T-Chart are correctly identified as causes or why something else happened. |
| Effect | All events on the right side of the T-Chart are correctly identified as effects. These events are direct results of something else. | Most events on the right side of the T-Chart are correctly identified as effects or direct results of something else. | Few or no events on the right side of the T-Chart are correctly identified as effects or direct results of something else. |
| Images | Images clearly show the events in the story that have been identified as causes and effects. | Images show events from the story, but not all images match the cause and effect events. | Images do not represent the story or are missing. |
| Cause and Effect Relationship | All rows correctly show cause events in the story having a direct effect on the effect events. | Most rows correctly show cause events in the story having a direct effect on the effect events. | Few or no rows correctly show cause events in the story having a direct effect on the effect events. |
